Coping with Ageing
I have been asked, by the ever enterprising euroresidentes team, to introduce some postings on the delicate business of how to grow old gracefully and without panic.
The subject is dear to my heart! I am in my seventy fifth year and have been retired now for nearly ten years after an active and eventful working life. My health during that period has been good and the worst I have had to struggle with has been recurring bouts of hypochondria – my occasional fears of some terminal illness happily proving illusory!
Until recently. In the last three years I have had heart surgery and radiotherapy treatment for prostate cancer. With good medical care in this country and in Spain, together with the unfussy understanding of my beloved family, I live well but remain curious about this strange business of ageing. There are often moments when I think ‘help! What’s happening to my body’ (and mind, which of course is also body). And if that’s your experience – hello!, and read on.
As a starter I will use the alphabet as a convenience, hoping that it will be a useful framework for the things we can touch on, but then perhaps move on to other matters. ‘An ABC Guide to Health for Older People’ sounds pretentious, but that’s the rough idea. I have no medical knowledge other than I can find from the web and from books, and any ideas that emerge will only be mine and have no authority other than my own understanding and experience. Where possible my concern is to be factual and to identify experiences that belong to most of us as we age. I admire people who say ‘I am as young as I feel’, but the truth is that often we don’t feel a bit young. Being old is more than feeling; it demands a level of realism about the decline, but also recognition of the new perspectives that ageing provides.
Your comments will be especially useful to others who may read this – so please, when you feel you have something to say or share, log on. Directed to people of a certain age, I hope others too may read and share. For – sorry, but it’s true – this happens to us all!
Bryan
The subject is dear to my heart! I am in my seventy fifth year and have been retired now for nearly ten years after an active and eventful working life. My health during that period has been good and the worst I have had to struggle with has been recurring bouts of hypochondria – my occasional fears of some terminal illness happily proving illusory!
Until recently. In the last three years I have had heart surgery and radiotherapy treatment for prostate cancer. With good medical care in this country and in Spain, together with the unfussy understanding of my beloved family, I live well but remain curious about this strange business of ageing. There are often moments when I think ‘help! What’s happening to my body’ (and mind, which of course is also body). And if that’s your experience – hello!, and read on.
As a starter I will use the alphabet as a convenience, hoping that it will be a useful framework for the things we can touch on, but then perhaps move on to other matters. ‘An ABC Guide to Health for Older People’ sounds pretentious, but that’s the rough idea. I have no medical knowledge other than I can find from the web and from books, and any ideas that emerge will only be mine and have no authority other than my own understanding and experience. Where possible my concern is to be factual and to identify experiences that belong to most of us as we age. I admire people who say ‘I am as young as I feel’, but the truth is that often we don’t feel a bit young. Being old is more than feeling; it demands a level of realism about the decline, but also recognition of the new perspectives that ageing provides.
Your comments will be especially useful to others who may read this – so please, when you feel you have something to say or share, log on. Directed to people of a certain age, I hope others too may read and share. For – sorry, but it’s true – this happens to us all!
Bryan
posted by Euroresidentes at 9:10 AM
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